


made memories we knew would never fade

by arendellesfirstwinter



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, heavily featuring big sister alex danvers, silly family fluff, snippets of language-learning shenanigans with kara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 08:24:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6603724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arendellesfirstwinter/pseuds/arendellesfirstwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Learning English is difficult, frustrating, and entirely too likely to lead to embarrassing stories, as Kara discovers. </p>
<p>(Like any good big sister, Alex has caused half the incidents on her own, and gleefully shared the other half with Kara's friends.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	made memories we knew would never fade

**Author's Note:**

> I've got around fifty Frozen one-shots scattered on my tumblr, and the first thing I post to ao3 after all this time is a Supergirl fluff piece. (And not even the Supergirl fic I _should_ be working on, which is a bit of a lengthy thing and will pop up eventually.)
> 
> More than anything, this fic's just a series of loosely-connected, light-hearted snippets of Kara and English, based on headcanon chatting with a friend.

Kara texts like she’s forty-nine years old. (Actually forty-nine. Like, no Phantom Zone visit forty-nine.)

She knows this. She resents this. She glares at anyone who brings this up. (But she knows this.)

She takes solace in knowing Clark does too. At the very least, _he_ has no excuse.

.

.

.

Picking up a second language is _hard_.

English is nonsensical and overwhelming, and Kara’s smart, she’s working fast to pick up new words and syntax rules every day, but it’s _hard_ , especially when no one is there to translate this language to her first. (Kal-El has a less than rudimentary grasp on Kryptonian, and his words are so accented and crudely pronounced that Kara thinks he might as well stick with English. At least then there’s no need to pretend she understands.)

Earth’s language is harsh, guttural. Kara longs for the smooth pitch and even tones of her native tongue, for the glides, for the subtle rise and fall. For the simplicity of her spoken language matching the language in her head, rather than the constant struggle to puzzle through new vocabulary and grammar and social rules on top.

But it’s a welcome task. It keeps Kara’s mind busy, occupied. Focusing on English pushes out thoughts of explosions and debris and the imagined screams of a dying world.

It doesn’t always work. But sometimes, it does, and on those nights, Kara doesn’t dream.

.

.

.

Earth does _not_ have a single, unified language, and Kara’s mad.

She spends all day sulking in her room until, laughing, Eliza and Jeremiah pull her out and reassure her that she’s not expected to know them all.

Alex offers to share her French notes if Kara teaches her Kryptonian.

Kara smiles, a rare true one, and nods.

(Almost seven thousand languages is still _too many_ for one planet though.)

.

.

.

Kara gets her first smartphone in 2008.

She discovers emoticons within the same day. They’re easy, understandable, simple. Forgiving for a second language learner from another planet. She takes to them instantly.

After a month, Alex refuses to answer her texts unless they contain actual words.

Kara sends her a sad face in response.

.

.

.

One month into her schooling, Kara still finds it difficult to translate the formalities of Kryptonian to the casual informality of spoken English. She’s running constant reminders in her head throughout the day: slouch, head down, appear disinterested in class, hands loose at her sides. Her appearance is mostly accurate now, but speaking, especially slang, still poses an issue.

So Kara searches online for outside help, and finds a rather comprehensive list of new words for relaxed conversation.

(She doesn’t think to check the date.)

Kara spends all next day in school alternating between “groovy”, “coolio”, and “that’s whack” before Alex comes rushing up after the bell, wild desperation in her eyes, and grabs Kara by the shoulders.

“Yo,” Kara greets.

“ _No_ ,” Alex hisses back, and hauls Kara straight home.

.

.

.

Kara picks up the phrase “little shit” and learns Alex is the epitome of one.

It’s her first spring break on Earth, and Kara learns something new every day. Alex has warmed to her since her arrival, and Kara thinks maybe they’ll get along some day; _really_ get along, like sisters are apparently supposed to.

Alex doesn’t _say_ she doesn’t like Kara, but Kara can read body language, has relied on it extensively while struggling through English, and she’s seen more often than not the tension in Alex’s body at Kara’s approach, the taut smiles and sidelong glares. It’s lessened, over the weeks, but Kara wonders if Alex will ever grow to truly like her.

Today seems to be the first real day of change, however, because Alex wakes Kara and shoves a cap on her head and says, “Get dressed. We’re going to the zoo.”

.

Kara gushes at the dinner table, hands waving animatedly in the air as she tells wild tales of the different animals of the zoo that Alex showed her today, of the lions and rhinos and yaglens and snurfs and monkeys and whittleworts, and when she finally notices the gaping mouths of Jeremiah and Eliza, and the muffled snickering from Alex, she slows to a halt.

Jeremiah and Eliza glare crossly at Alex, who snorts into her drink and shrugs innocently.

They spend the next three hours going over a list of animals from the zoo and correcting Alex’s meddling from earlier in the day.

(Which is apparently more extensive than anyone realized, they discover, as Kara points cheerfully to an elephant and declares “goat!” and argues fiercely that if whittlewort isn’t real, then there’s no _way_ hippopotamus _is_.)

.

.

.

Kara spends more time than she’d like researching the meanings behind acronyms.

She’s got the basics down. “OMG” is a particular favorite, but she gets good mileage out of “lol” and “brb”. (“Idk” has also proven its usefulness.)

Unfortunately, the acronym lexicon of the English language is growing, and Kara is hard-pressed to keep up.

It’s not a lack of understanding, really; more a lack of familiarity. As fluent as she is now, as comfortable with English as she ever was with Kryptonian, Kara still slips up. Pop culture references from before the ‘90s often pass her by, her grammar shifts out of order at times, and she’s determined to puzzle her way through the common phrases that make up now common acronyms.

Winn is the worst. His texts are indecipherable code, and half the time Kara can’t tell if he’s using acronyms, programmer lingo, or just plain new words.

James is a mix; in typical text conversation, he’s easy enough to follow, if informal. His shorthand on news reports, however, might as well be encrypted, because the same purpose is achieved either way.

Lucy is professional, using perfect punctuation, grammar, and spelling, and Kara’s thanked her more than once for this.

Alex’s texting style doesn’t matter, because she’s the one person Kara always understands.

So Kara’s still learning.

And of course, when in doubt, use smileys.

.

.

.

With her favorite being Kara’s Adventure with Outdated Slang, Alex insists on sharing language stories nearly every time she joins Kara and her friends for a group dinner.

Still. _Still._

“It’s been _years_ , Alex, _let it go_.”

Kara groans into her hands as Alex smirks and the others at the table chuckle. She already knows what’s coming next.

“Chillax, homefry,” Alex deadpans.

Kara’s head thumps to the table and everyone bursts into laughter.

.

.

.

Twelve years later, and Kara makes sure that Kryptonian never sticks in her throat the way English once did. The words are heavy in her mouth, but familiar, and though Kara no longer has use for her dead language, she clings tightly to it. It’s a near tangible remnant of home, and she never wants to forget.

Some nights, Kara speaks softly, a gentle prayer to the dying Rao, far far away in the universe, to safeguard her planet’s people.

Others, Kara speaks loudly, excitedly. She tells her parents stories of Alex and the Danvers, of Lucy and Winn and James and J’onn, of her heroics as Supergirl and her mishaps at Catco. She speaks of her promotion, of the way Alex saved her, of anything and everything she can, just to feel the familiar words pass her lips.

(She’s considered talking to the AI of her mother, but it’s not the same.)

On occasion, Kara doesn’t speak at all. She sits in silence, watches out her window, gazes transfixed at the stars.

And every so often, Alex sits by Kara’s side and asks quiet questions in simple Kryptonian.

_“are you okay”_

_“do you want to talk”_

_“i’m always here”_

Kara smiles and tucks her head into the crook of Alex’s neck, slings one arm around her sister’s shoulders.

“ _Ukiem i vo rrip, Kara,_ ” Alex murmurs, returning the hug, and Kara’s heart soars, as it always does, at the spoken Kryptonian, a hushed remnant of a lost world.

Content in her sister’s embrace, forever grateful that, for all Kara’s lost, she’s gained so much more of equal worth, she replies, “ _Chao ukiem i vo rrip, Alex, uldif_.”

.

.

.

_“My love to you, Kara”_

_“And my love to you, Alex, forever”_

**Author's Note:**

> Slight addendum: It's been very rightfully pointed out to me that the slang section, general silliness aside, is not at all indicative of how a second language learner would actually pick it up. I'll say that I based it more on Kara's transition from the formalities of Kryptonian speech to like, casual American English, as my intention, and I'm gonna leave it in the fic, but I do definitely want to clarify that I'm aware it's inaccurate, and don't take it as anything but.


End file.
